EXTREME Color Correction Using 3 Points in Photoshop!

hi there this is animation pics in perfect I hope you are doing amazing and in all honesty I'm not really sure whether there's anything which is officially called a three point color correction I just made it up because we start with three samples and it's super simple to do now if you are wondering about the three eyedroppers on curves you're thinking very very right congratulations but most of the times the three points are just not enough there's a thing called compensation and we can learn about that today so without any further ado let's get started so here we are again in the magical world of Photoshop and if you then download this photo and follow along check the links in the description the first thing that we have to do the first step is colour correcting with those three samples okay so create a curves adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose curves right there now let's stick it to the left hand side so that you can see what's happening have a look at this it has three hydras the first second third now the first one look at the tip of the eyedropper it has black on it which means it sets the black point the middle one has a dip of the color gray it sets the gray point and the bottom one has white it sets the white point now let's start with the black point let's click on it here's where things get interesting now click on an area which should have been black in real life so while you are taking the picture in the real scenario which area should have been black or close to black see nothing can be absolutely black unless it's very very dark and there's no light coming in there's a little bit of light going in everywhere in this image so nothing can be exactly black just select an area just pick an area which is closest to black so click on an area close to black or you think which is absolutely black so I'm just gonna zoom in and I think this area could have been black not purple so click on that area now you get a pretty better dome but it's all greenish wait there's a little bit of patience to be maintained now select the white point gray point in the end ok so white point now which area should have been white or close to white in real life it's important to note close to white because we will be using compensation later so click on this one and then choose a point which should have been white click on that Wow that works you can also try clicking on separate areas and also you can choose the sample size make sure it's not point sample what happens is if you choose point sample it will only sample from that one pixel that one pixel can be dark that one pixel can be a noise so you can sample a very wrong color so make sure there's an average 5 by 5 11 by 11 3 by 3 depending upon the resolution and the type of image we are dealing with if you choose 5 by 5 what that does is that it makes a square of 5 by 5 pixels and it takes the average color of that area so 5 by 5 is fine for this example I'm just gonna click in a couple of places and it works now it's time for us to set the gray point so click on the middle now click on an area and image which should have been gray in real life or next or close to grey we need to pick an area of it should not even have a touch of color in real life alright so in this case it's gonna be this area so this should have been great so I'm just gonna click there and click in a couple of places to see which area gives me a better result so this is fine there's a little bit of blue that'll take care of that in compensation have a look at it just three points he hurts the before here's the after we have come a long way the next step is compensation you see when we choose the black point and the white point we chose an area which is close to absolute black because there's no absolute black area in this image so what happens is when you say to photoshop that this is a black point it makes that area completely absolutely black which is not in real life right and when you click on an area and say to photoshop hey this is the white point it makes it absolutely white it takes away all the details we don't want any of that to happen right so here is what we do we compensate for it so let's zoom in let's talk about the black point again as you can see it has made this completely black and we're losing details in this area so let's get back to the RGB channel make sure you're in the RGB Channel and then let's raise up the shadows just like soldiers click and raise not too much just at the point where you get back all the details so in my opinion it's gonna be this let's zoom out a little bit have a look at this we are losing details in this area right so we will take down the highlights click and drag it down you see we got the details back now we have compensated for the white point in the black point now sometimes the grey point is not very accurate so you need to compensate for that as well as you can see in the mid-tones there's a lot of Blues so we need to decrease the Blues right so we will go to the blue channel click on the channel drop down menu and let's go ahead and choose blue so oops I chose green let's choose blue and in the mid-tones we just need to reduce it so click on the middle just bring it down just like that and as you can see it solves the issue so very easily also as you can see have a look here there's a lot of green on his face and we just hate green on skin tones right so we're gonna go to the green channel click on the channel drop down menu and let's choose green and this time we can use the hand tool that's one of the most amazing tools in Photoshop you don't even have to look in the curves so select the hand tool right there and then you need to reduce the green right click on a green area just like that click and drag it down to reduce it as easy as that so we reduced it to the point where we liked it now you can just manipulate it inside of curse so I'm just gonna take it down like that maybe mid-tones I'll take it a little down to take away the greens and it looks alright and at this point everything looks alright maybe we'll have to decrease the blue as well so go to the blue Channel and maybe let's use the hand tool and here's a lot of Blues so we can just take care of at this point and zoom out and see let's have a look here is the before here is the after we have solved all now let's zoom and I think there's a little bit of green over here again so again we will go to the green Channel and we'll just play with this area see what we can do now since we have darkened this area so much and we just take it down even more we have to compensate for it again let's go to the RGB Channel right this area we have to compensate see because we darkens green too much in that area it makes the overall luminosity of the image a little lower it makes them much darker in that area so we need to just compensate for that have a look at the green it's going so much down we need to balance it out in the RGB channel so something like that so that's the idea behind compensation again if you go to the blue Channel let's say you decrease the Blues in the middle maybe somewhere here okay then you might have to come to the RGB channel to compensate for the same just like so now that we have done that our next step is color grading now color grading is very different from color correction color correction is correcting the colors getting them right color grading is using colors to stylize your image to add mood to it to add style to it okay it might not be realistic it might not be accurate but it's about adding the style in the mood so let's create one more curves adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose curves now I want to give the whole image a warm Christmas feel so here is what we do we go to the blue Channel now how do we make things warm by adding yellow and red right so we are in the blue Channel and there's no yellow Channel right but blue is the opposite of yellow always remember RGB is the opposite of see my red opposite of cyan green opposite of magenta and blue opposite of yellow so if we decrease the blue people get yellow right so let's decrease the blue to get an overall yellow tint to this okay now I think maybe we can use a little bit of magenta so let's go to the green Channel and if we decrease the green we get a little bit of magenta great now let's go to the right channel and let's increase the red just a touch not so much just a touch now let's go to the RGB Channel we have to balance for this one all right so we have added a thin layer of color grading on top of it looks amazing now in my experience whenever we are dealing with a lot of curves adjustment less there comes a point where you need to control the colors more often than not the saturation just increases so people create a hue saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the adjustment layer icon and then choosing hue saturation right and then simply just decrease the saturation to somewhere around minus 16 works we can always change that later now it's time for us to balance the light as you can see in this image this area has gone a little darker so we need to create a curves adjustment layer again so click on adjustment layer icon and then choose curves and just increase it take it to the top just like this now select the mask press ctrl or command I to invert the mask then you would take the brush to just simply with a soft brush and flow at 100 you can just paint on that area which is dark so just paint on that one and I'll be fine smoothness we don't need it just decrease it to zero and make sure you're using the soft round brush that's fine okay now I have purposely painted a little extra press X to toggle between the foreground and the background black hides and white shows up so I'm gonna paint with black to hide the extras to give it a much more smoother transition press X again to change it to white maybe a little dab over right there that makes it nice now let's control the curve it's too bright I know let's control it let's decrease it a bit just like so now at this point in this area I think there's a lot of green so we'll go to the green channel and we will reduce the greens in the dark areas so we'll just pick a point on the left-hand side and just to reduce it just like that and take it up in the bright areas okay now let's turn it off and turn it on have a look at the difference also at the same time you can go to the red Channel maybe there's a lot of red over there so just take down the Reds a little bit okay and let's just brighten it even more yes this is beautiful now let's create one more curves adjustment layer and this time I feel there's still a little bit of green over there so create a curves and we'll directly go to the green Channel and with the help of the hand ooh we'll take this further even down like that okay now I'm only gonna paint in that Irian side of the mosque click on the mask press ctrl or command I and then just simply take the brush and make it small with white as the foreground color just paint on the areas where you think there's a lot of green this area is good that area needs to be painted this is fine also do not forget compensation because he lured the green you need to compensate for it just increase the brightness in the RGB channel and it works fine now as you can see no matter what you do the area in the clothe that he's wearing there's always this color so we will add a hue/saturation adjustment layer again click on the adjustment layer icon and choose hue/saturation and take it all the way to the left just like this not too much this is fine click on the mask press ctrl or command I now take the brush white as the foreground color white shows up black hides and just paint over here to take away all those color costs like that you can also paint this area as well now of course this is too much so we will increase the saturation a bit something like that and that looks fine now it's time for us to add a little bit of pop and contrast to this image so again create a curves adjustment layer it's a whole load of curves now hold the alt or option this is interesting and dig this slider to the left just when you begin to see the artifacts stop so at this point I'll stop right there and hold the alt or option from the left hand side drag it to the right stop there you begin to see the artifacts just like that that we expand the dynamic range now you can again just maybe make it a little brighter from the middle and make it darker here and it looks nice now as you can see these areas are getting too red right so create a hue/saturation adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer again and choose he with saturation now you can choose to just reduce the red as well so you're gonna go to the red Channel click on the drop down menu and let's go ahead and choose Red's you can expand the range a little bit and simply reduce the saturation of the red at the point where it looks normal so this looks normal this looks nice click on the mask press ctrl or command I and then just paint on the areas where you wanted to reduce the red so take the brush foreground color white just paint on this area that was kind of to red over there then you can control the opacity just maybe I'll keep it 5354 that is fine now how about we add some sharpening to it wouldn't that be awesome so we need to create a stamp visible left press ctrl alt shift and E command option shift + E on a Mac alright now go to filter convert for Smart Filters this converts this into a smart object so that whatever value of sharpening we apply we can change that later so we will go to filter other and then High Pass now all you need to do is to take the radius all the way to the left hand side now gradually increase it just when you see the edges are accentuated stop we don't want any halos here and there so not so much maybe this is this is gonna be fine five point six okay you can change this later don't worry about it change the blend mode from normal to overlay okay this is looking fine but we didn't want any sharpening at the back so create a mask and take the brush foreground color black and just paint black on these areas we did not want any sharpening over there sharpening here is fine you know what I'll make one more copy of this one this is sharpening let's name it sharpening one press ctrl or command J to make a copy now this copy I'll take the mask and paint away the chair I just want to sharpen the face in this one some extra sharpening on the face chest the face maybe double-click on the high pass and then play with the radius zoom in quite a bit this time let's set the radius to somewhere around 7.6 that is fine hit OK now let's decrease the opacity maybe let's increase it slowly and gradually to 60% let's zoom out this is amazing now at the end you can do anything you want I'm gonna add a selective color adjustment then click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose selective color we need a little bit of darkness on the lips and on the cheek so we will go to the red we will target the Reds and make sure the relative is checked and then just increase the blacks it makes that area darker have a look at the difference amazing right so there we go let's have a look at the before and after so this is the before and this is the after even I'm surprised maybe at the end I will add a hue/saturation adjustment I believe there's so much saturation and will just decrease it like that you can also add a color lookup table if you want let's try it click on the adjustment layer and choose color lookup and we're gonna choose crisp warm let's see how Wow that is really great let's let's keep the opacity to 42 43 now let's have a look at it before and after so this is the before and this my friend his the after so that's how to color correct starting with three samples three-point color correction I don't know whether that's the official name but that's ok it makes sense to you let's do a quick little recap the first thing we do is add a curves adjustment layer very obvious and then using the three points we sample the three areas which should have been white black and gray in real life then we adjust it then we compensate for it if you click on an area which is close to black it will make that area completely black you need to compensate for it in the RGB channel by increasing the brightness in that area and then sometimes it's going to add a lot of greens a lot of Blues you need to just compensate for it and go in the opposite direction then we did a little bit of color grading we added a little style to it okay and then we control the saturation whenever we deal with a lot of curves adjustment layer the colors go haywire so we need to just dim it down a little bit then we balanced the brightness here it was too dark we just balanced it up after that you also added one more curves adjustment layer to kind of take away the greens in this area and then we took away all the colors in some of the areas by just hue/saturation have a look this area had a lot of color if I just click it on this will become completely white of course we need to refine the mask in that area that is something which you need to take time to do and then we added one more curves adjustment layer to add some contrast and punch to it one more hue/saturation adjustment layer to just decrease the reds in this area now if you open it right now you'll see it's on normal but it's not if you go to Red's you'll see it is decreased after that we sharpened it we added one more layer of sharpening on the face and then a selective color adjustment layer to darken the Reds a little bit hue/saturation to again dim down the colors and at the end a color lookup table that's your personal choice and depends upon your personal taste and that's pretty much it for this tutorial I hope this tutorial helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other future tip trick or tutorial I would like to take this moment to thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep things simple effect free for everybody forever thank you so much for only support thank you for watching I'll see you guys in my next one : stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 131,341

Keywords: 3 point color correction, color correction, color grading, portrait retouching, curves, hue saturation, adjustment layer, white point, gray point, black point, eyedropper, color lookup, lut, special effects, warm tones, remove color cast, piximperfect, sharpening, unmesh dinda

Id: M5iJjKWoJxk

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 09 2018